Librarians! What
Are We Hiding?
by Roz Warren
I’ve
worked behind the circulation desk of my local
public library for 15 years and I love my job.
But that job has gone through plenty of changes. When
I began, library work was all about the books.
These days, while our patrons still check out
books, they also come in to use our computers,
borrow DVDs and audio books, and learn how to
download “content“ onto a staggering
variety of electronic devices.
Meanwhile,
staffing is being cut, and the public encouraged
to use our automatic check out system, and to pay
their fines and renew their material online.
So are
librarians still relevant? Useful? What does
being a 21st century librarian mean, really? Who
exactly are we? And how does the world see us? I
decided to perform a quick Google search and find
out.
I typed in the
phrase “Librarians are…“ and here’s
how Google’s auto-fill completed the thought:
Generals in
the war on ignorance
Weird.
Annoying
Novel lovers
Hiding something
Obsolete.
Awesome.
Hot.
Great people.
Heroes every day.
Am I a novel
lover? Absolutely. Hot? I’d like to think so.
A hero every day? Well, I do feel a little heroic
whenever I am able to intuit where a book that a
patron is desperate to read has been mis-shelved,
and deliver it safely into her hands.
Still, sensing
that I didn’t yet have the complete picture,
I decided to fine tune my results by running a
few more librarian-related questions through my
favorite search engines. (Yes, I’ve got
favorite search engines. How librarial is that?)
Being a
librarian is…
Great
Stressful
Hard
Boring.
(I’d say
it was all of the above.)
A librarian is…
A trained information specialist.
Coming to dinner.
Stacked.
Librarians
should…
Read.
Rule the internet.
Know.
Know how to spell.
How do
librarians…
Choose books?
Use math?
Help the community?
Make money?
Librarians can’t…
Save the world.
Buy me love.
Help falling in love.
Why Do
librarians…
Love their jobs?
Make more money than teachers?
Make less money than garbage collectors?
Librarians
Need To…
Know about math.
Know about MOOCs..
Know everything.
Librarians can…
Help struggling readers.
Change the world.
Work from home.
Have tattoos.
Librarians
enjoy…
The silence.
Life.
Shampoo.
The ride.
Sadly, when I
typed in: “Your librarian…” the
only result I got was:
Hates you.
(Which, it
turns out, is the name of one disgruntled
librarian’s website.)
And finally?
Librarians never…
Die. They just check out.
So what can we
conclude? We librarians are awesome. We can help
struggling readers. We can have tattoos. We can’t
help falling in love. But we can (still) help
change the world.
Is any of this
accurate? Who knows? If you want to talk about it,
you’ll find me behind the circulation desk
at the Bala Cynwyd Library.
Unless I’m
at the tattoo parlor.
First
published by www.Newsworks.org
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